Campaign for a Reality-Based Reality

"You are entitled to your own opinions. You are not entitled to your own facts."

-Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was set up to provide a way for leading scientists to sit down together, evaluate all of the available data on climate change, and present the public and policymakers with the best possible overview of the current state of the science. It exists to assess and present the facts. We need to know the facts. We need to know what has happened, what is happening, and what is likely to happen in the future. Without that knowledge, there is no hope of establishing an effective public policy on anything.

First, we learn the facts. Then we shape our policies. We learn what is happening, then we decide what should be done. That's the way it's supposed to work; that's the only way it can work.

Late last week, the IPCC released a "Summary for Policymakers." This one was prepared by Working Group II, and outlines scientists current assessment of the impact of climate change, on the possibilities of adapting to climate change, and on the areas that are most vulnerable to harm from climate change. This is a big deal report because it's the one that's going to talk about risks. The report is supposed to contain the facts about how much climate change has hurt us so far, how much it's likely to hurt us in the near future, how it is likely to hurt us, and who is most likely to get hurt.

Right now, there are two versions of the report available online. One of them is the draft that the scientists wrote. The second is the final, official version of the report after the scientists and the diplomats "worked out" the language. It is entirely understandable that the language of final draft differ from the original draft. It is entirely unacceptable that the facts presented in the final draft are significantly different than the facts presented in the scientists' first draft. It is entirely unforgivable that the final draft omits facts that describe clear threats to people's lives.

But that's what happened. The diplomats - particularly those from China, India, and Russia (which want more energy available to drive their development), Saudi Arabia (which exports a lot of greenhouse-gas producing petroleum), and the United States (which really doesn't have any good reason other than sheer bloody-mindedness) - didn't like the facts that the scientists came up with. So they demanded changes.

I've got no problem with the idea of changing facts, as long as it's done properly. To change a fact properly, what you do is work. You come up with a plan, you work very hard, and if you are both good and lucky you might just be able to get reality to turn out the way you wanted. But that's the hard way. The diplomats decided to change the facts the easy way. They wrote down different facts, and put those into the final version of the report. That's not the proper way to change facts.

Climate change is a real problem, and trying to repair the damage is going to hurt people. Politicians in a lot of places, including the White House, think that most of the ways we can try to fix things will hurt people too much, so we shouldn't try them. Personally, I think that's a short-sighted, selfish, self-centered approach that is going to do an enormous amount of harm to our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, but in the opinion of a lot of people, that's the approach that we should take. They are entitled to that opinion. They are entitled to try to convince people that their opinion is the best one out there.

They are not entitled to their own facts - but that's what they are demanding. They are not content to argue that we shouldn't do anything that's going to hurt the economy now. Instead, they're trying to argue that there isn't going to be that much harm to future generations. That is why the final draft said that scientists are less certain about what's going to happen than they really are. That is why the final draft dropped mentions of some of the threats - like glacial lake outbursts - that climate change is creating. That is why the final draft didn't talk about how much more climate change is going to hurt the poor and vulnerable.

Well, that might be what they want to say, and that might be what they want to hear, but that is not what the facts are telling us. The fact is that scientists are pretty damn certain - and getting more certain every day - that climate change is real, and it's really having impacts on real people. The fact is that climate change does increase the threat of harm from a whole bunch of different sources. The fact is that climate change is going to hurt the world's poor first, and it's going to hurt them worse.

The fact is that the politicians of a small number of nations are so concerned about their narrow national interests that they are willing to lie about the facts. Their distortions of the truth will, if they are not stopped, put real people at risk.

This is why it's time - past time - to stand up for a reality-based reality. We need to make decisions that will affect the future. If we want to make the decision that will be best for everyone, we need to know the real facts. The ideologically-based "reality" is far too dangerous to be allowed to shape our actions.